With curled lip and mockery in his eye Brian watched her struggle. “Poor little girl,” he murmured. “But so amusing.”
Olivia’s hand closed over the friendship ring in her pocket. Portia had exorcized this demon once and for all. Now Olivia met Brian’s smile with her own and concentrated fiercely.
“Excuse me. I have to take off my cloak.” There, she’d managed the stumbling block. It was the hardest sound of them all for her. With a little nod of satisfaction she turned to the stairs.
She was feeling so pleased with herself that she almost skipped down the passage towards Phoebe’s bedchamber.
Phoebe was sitting on the chest at the foot of the bed, wriggling her white numbed toes at the fire in an attempt to get the feeling back, when Olivia came in. “I’m sure I’m frostbitten,” she declared.
“They do look rather dead,” Olivia said, peering at Phoebe’s feet with some fascination. She hitched herself onto the edge of the bed, observing cheerfully, “It was funny to see my father c- carrying you like that.”
“My feet
“I’ve never seen him do anything like that before,” Olivia said. “He doesn’t tend to be spontaneous. Maybe all these surprises you k-keep giving him are having an effect.”
“What kind of effect?” Phoebe hopped off the chest to fetch clean stockings from the linen press.
Olivia considered. “Well, he laughs more,” she said finally. “He never used to laugh when Diana was around, but now he’s often amused. I like it,” she added. “I used to think he was sad a lot of the time. But he doesn’t seem so now.”
“Really?” Phoebe paused, her clean stockings in her hand. “Do you really think so?”
“Mmm.” Olivia nodded. “Haven’t you noticed how his eyes seem to gleam sometimes?”
“Yes, they do, don’t they?” Phoebe smiled to herself.
“Well, I’d better take off my c-cloak before dinner.” Olivia jumped up. “We’ll go and see Meg this afternoon.” She went to the door just as it opened to admit Cato, intent on changing into riding dress.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said with a curtsy. “I was just talking to Phoebe while she changed her stockings.”
Cato nodded a mite absently. He had rather a lot on his mind at present. He closed the door behind Olivia.
“How are your feet?”
“Warmer now.” Phoebe eased her stockings over her toes, then slowly pulled them up, stretching her leg in front of her as she did so, flexing her foot.
Cato watched her. There was something undeniably sensuous about the whole maneuver. She fastened her garters just above the knee and then looked up as if aware of his scrutiny for the first time. Her teeth closed over her bottom lip, and a smile touched her eyes, a smile where diffidence blended with invitation.
“I’ve ordered dinner for noon,” Cato said slowly. He began to unbutton his doublet. “I have to ride to headquarters this afternoon.”
“Will you ride home today when you’ve completed your business, sir?” Phoebe remained perched on the bed, her skirt still hitched up above her knees.
They were very prettily rounded knees. Cato’s fingers were now on the waistband of his velvet britches. “I had not thought to be absent this night,” he said.
Had the previous night really happened? Had it just been a trick, an artful pretense? He had a sudden mad impulse to test the waters.
“Come here,” he said, crooking a finger at her.
Phoebe slid off the bed, her rich velvet skirts sweeping once more to her ankles. She came slowly towards him, her eyes as brilliant as a sun-filled midsummer sky.
Chapter 10
Phoebe looked a little puzzled at the lack of a lead. She hesitated, then as if of their own accord, her hands went to his waist, to the fastening of his britches. She pressed her hand against the hard bulge at the apex of his thighs, feeling it stir beneath the rich dark velvet. Her face was upturned to his and Cato watched her, his eyes glittering with an almost predatory light that flooded her with excitement, set her loins pulsing, her stomach tightening.
Slowly she lowered her eyes and unfastened his britches, button by button. She slipped her hands into the opened waist to hold the slim hips, before sliding behind to the taut muscular slopes of his buttocks. She was breathing fast, her hands operating as if without instruction from her brain. Slowly she peeled his britches and drawers away from his hips, slipping to her knees in almost the same movement.
The turgid shaft of flesh jutted from its bush of black curling hair. Phoebe placed her palms flat against his hips and her face against his belly. The earthy fragrance of his arousal filled her nostrils, sending her senses spinning. She licked the column of dark hair running down from his navel, enjoying the rasp on her tongue as taste mingled with scent. Her hand slipped between his thighs to grasp the tender globes. She felt their weight, the softness of the taut skin.
She ran her hand up the shaft of flesh, enclosing it in her palm, feeling the blood pulse strong against her hand. Her tongue darted, to lick the dew clustering at the dark swollen tip. The salty taste of him entranced her. Taking him fully within her mouth now, she drew her lips up the length of the stem as her hands continued to stroke and knead between his thighs.
Cato was lost. He had been pleasured thus by women for whom sex was both a toy and a commodity, but this young woman with her flawlessly knowing touch was unlike any other he had experienced. There was a paradoxical innocence to the instinctive deftness of her touch, to the clear delight she was taking in pleasuring him. When she looked up at him, her blue eyes were sparkling with her own excitement, her cheeks delicately flushed, her parted lips offering a near irresistible invitation.
He grew closer to the brink and then with a sudden movement caught her head, moving her mouth away from him. “You will share this with me,” he rasped, his voice sounding oddly harsh with the effort of restraint. He bent and caught her up beneath his arms and toppled her backward onto the bed.
Phoebe writhed, her entire body suffused with need. His hands were rough on her thighs as he pushed up her skirts. He seized her ankles and lifted her legs onto his shoulders, kneeling between her thighs, his eyes fierce as he drove deep within her.
He leaned over her and pushed her gown off her shoulders, catching her full breasts in his hands. She moaned and bucked beneath him as he played with her nipples. The corded muscles in his neck stood out as he held himself on the brink for as long as he could. Then, when he could wait no longer, he ran his hands down the backs of her thighs, grasped her buttocks with hard fingers, pulling her closer against him. Phoebe’s eyes flew open, pure wonderment in their depths. Then her back arced off the bed and her body convulsed around him.
Cato fell forward with a groan, gathering her against him in a tangle of skirts and petticoats, his mouth buried against the softness of her throat. Phoebe quivered beneath him.
And into this dark and sweat-tangled world of their own came a knock on the door.
Cato pulled himself up. “What is it?”
“Me, m’lord.” Giles Crampton’s robust tones called through the oak. “You ordered me ‘ere fer dinner at noon, sir. We’re to set off after, you said.”
Cato uttered a barnyard expletive and got off the bed. “I’ll be down in five minutes, Giles.”
“Right y’are, m’lord. I’ll tell Bisset to put the meat back in the warmin‘ oven, shall I?”
Cato glanced at the cloak on the mantel. It was a quarter past noon. “Damn his impertinence!” Cato muttered, stripping off his disordered clothing. Giles always found a way to make his point.
“I don’t think I can get up,” Phoebe murmured, stretching languidly. “I seem to be dissolved.”
Cato looked down at her as she lay in an abandoned sprawl on the bed, her skirts pushed up, exposing the sweet white plumpness of her thighs and the small curve of her belly. The dark bush at the base of her belly glistened with the juices of their loving. Clearly her responses the previous night had been no artful pretense.
“Where did it come from?” he muttered.
“Where did what come from?” Unconsciously Phoebe passed her hands in a long caress over her body.
“Your wantonness,” he said, tapping his mouth reflectively with his fingertips. “I’ve never come across it before in a woman of your breeding.”
There was a note in his voice that made Phoebe sit up, pushing down her skirts. “Is it wrong, then?”
Cato hesitated for a minute too long before he shook his head. “No… no, of course not.” He gave a half laugh that didn’t sound particularly mirthful and went to the armoire for his leather riding britches and woolen jerkin.
Phoebe dragged herself off the bed. Why had he hesitated?
Cato dressed swiftly, saying as he strode from the room, “Hurry, Phoebe, I don’t relish any more of Giles’s veiled impertinence.”
Phoebe dipped the washcloth into the basin and wrung it out. He’d been as eager for that passionate lust as she had. So why did she feel this unease? Thoughtfully she tidied herself and hurried down to the dining parlor.
Everyone was already at table when she came in. Giles Crampton cast her a knowing sidelong glance which infuriatingly made her blush. She took her seat with a somewhat incoherent apology for having kept them waiting and hastily reached for her wine goblet.
“Have you decided to play Gloriana, Phoebe?” Olivia inquired, helping herself to roast mutton and onion sauce. She studiously ignored Brian Morse, who sat opposite her.
“I’m thinking about it.” Relieved at this ordinary turn of conversation, Phoebe looked over at Cato, “Do you think, sir, that some of your soldiers would be willing to take part? I’m writing the scene where Elizabeth addresses the troops and says those things about having the heart of a man in the weak body of a woman, and it would make a better spectacle if there were some real troops for her to address.”
Giles snorted. “Over my dead body, m’lady! They’re soldiers, not play actors.”
Phoebe was too used to Giles to take offense, but she could mount her own spirited defense. “I thought a midsummer pageant might cheer people up,” she said. “Life’s so gloomy and hard for everyone with the war, and it’s been going on for so long. Raising morale is an honorable enough task for a soldier, I would have thought.”
“You’re writing a play, Lady Granville?” Brian sounded amused.
“A pageant,” she corrected.
“Oh, I do trust you’ll find a part for me,” he said in the same tone.
“Surely you won’t still b-be here at midsummer?” Olivia said in undisguised horror, looking at him for the first time since the meal began. “That’s
Phoebe broke in as she saw Cato’s expression. “I’m sure I can find a part for you, Mr. Morse, if you’re still here. But what about the soldiers, my lord? Real ones would be much more effective than villagers dressed up, don’t you think?”
“Undoubtedly,” he agreed, quelling Olivia with a glare. “But I have to agree with Giles that the men have better things to do than play at amateur dramatics, however worthy the motive.”
“So, you’re an amateur playwright?” Brian pressed, before Phoebe could respond to Cato’s careless dismissal of her enterprise. “It was always quite a popular activity at court before the war. But not too many ladies indulged in the pursuit, as I recall.” He offered a humoring smile and sipped his wine.
“Phoebe is a very accomplished poet,” Olivia declared. “I dare swear no c-court poet would be ashamed to acknowledge her writing.”
“Indeed.” Brian’s eyebrows rose. “I hadn’t realized you had frequented court circles.”
“Phoebe has and she told me about the empty-headed courtiers,” Olivia said.
